“Mick, are you sure it’s a few kids we’re chasing after?”

Blue blinked to get rid of the water drizzling down his forehead and into his eyes. The brim on his hat had done a great job keeping away the rain from his head at first. But after it got soaked, which everything did since they were walking through a wet forest in the middle of a rainstorm, it had only become a funnel and led all the water straight into his face and hair.

The bad weather and the rain creeping down within his mostly effective oilskin coat made Blue want to get done with this assignment as quickly as possible. And considering the details of the assignment, they should already have made quite some headway with it. But here they were, he and Mick, in the middle of a forest on the border to an enemy kingdom.

“The details are in the assignment we got. All the knights and witnesses that survived the fire agreed on who killed the Baron’s son.”

Mick didn’t even look at Blue as his gaze pierced through the leaves and falling raindrops, looking for and finding the traces of their targets.

“I know, but shouldn’t we have caught up by now? They even said one of them was injured.”

“...”

“What if they died in the fire, and we’re chasing a spy or something?”

“Stop wasting your words with nonsense and focus on the assignment. The Baron promised a decent reward if we could catch them alive.”

“Urgh, transporting them back alive is going to be such a hassle.”

Mick glanced at Blue with a cruel smile.

“He didn’t specify how intact they had to be. He only asked for them to be alive. We can just say they lost a couple of limbs while resisting.”

Blue frowned.

“Fuck, man. You get so brutal so quickly. Besides, you noticed how those townspeople spoke of the kids we’re tracking.”

“What are you trying to get at? Hey, it looks like they’ve started getting hungry. It also seems like these footprints are getting clearer. We must be closing in.”

Blue and Mick bent down to inspect the traces they had found. The freshly torn stems and leaves showed where Ritzy and Gerhart had plucked and eaten berries.

“Mick, what if….”

“‘What if’ what?”

Mick didn’t care too much about Blue’s hesitation and stood up to continue tracking their prey. Now that the prints were getting clearer, even if only slightly, they could tell that they were nearing their targets. It wouldn’t be long until they were at the closest town, celebrating a successful capture with a steaming hot meal, a refreshing beer, and maybe a girl or two.

“What if they didn’t do it? Don’t you think the townspeople could have blamed the kids for it? They said it themselves. No one except one or two could tolerate them. And you know what the Baron’s kids are like. What if the townspeople killed Baron Michmond’s son and are pinning the blame on the outcast orphans, who no one would defend or protect?”

Blue’s clear concern and worry did make Mick slow down a little. They also knew what it was like to be shunned by others.

“So what?”

“What do you mean so what?!” Blue couldn’t understand why Mick acted like he didn’t care.

“So what if you’re right? What changes, Blue? Are you going to go back and tell the Baron that you think the kids are innocent? When the entire town claims the opposite? When there isn’t even a shred of evidence?”

Blue couldn’t respond. He only watched Mick in stunned silence.

“Stop thinking up unnecessary conspiracy theories, Blue. Just do what we’re told. We get the money, we have some fun, and we do what we want. That’s what we’ve done so far. Is there any reason to change that now? For the sake of some random kids that we’ve never met, who, let’s be honest, probably did kill that rotten noble?”

“I suppose not.”

Blue trailed behind Mick, downcast.

“You know what, Blue? I’ll treat you to a night at Madame Holburry’s when we get back to Mokond.”

“Really?”

Blue spoke with hints of disbelief, but Mick’s words had succeeded in raising his spirit at least a little.

“Yeah. I promise. Now put that nose to use. I think something happened here.”

Mick pointed at the ground where the pair muddy of footprints they had been following trailed all over the place. They were uneven, both in placement and depth. It was as if they had scurried around in a frenzy after benign scared or attacked.

And the cause for that was also apparent when they noticed the third set of footprints, which didn’t match the other two.

“Hey, don’t these look like the footprints that led the other way?”

Blue pointed at the footprints that were a little off to the side when compared to the other two. Mick came close and knelt down.

“They do. I told you they were trying to mislead us.”

“Well, yeah. But why do these kids have an adult man’s shoes? And what’s with these handprints? What happened with the other pair they used to try and fake a fourth set with?”

Mick shrugged at Blue’s questions.

“No idea. I thought you were the detective. What does your nose tell you?”

Blue didn’t bother responding to Mick’s sarcasm. He closed his eyes and focused on his nose. He ignored the sound of the rain falling on the leaves. He ignored the feeling of the cold water trickling down his blue hair and the nape of his neck. But he didn’t ignore the mana coursing through his body, which he guided through his body in an intricate pattern and into his nose.

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He opened his eyes after a while.

“Alright, something’s weird.”

“Stop beating around the bush and tell me.”

“I was pretty sure I got a good whiff of the three kids we’re chasing from outside the wall and the cabin. I mean, those three scents I picked up should belong to our targets. I also picked up that burnt fourth scent along the way, but that should be someone else that’s after them, right?”

“Yeah. Get to the point already.”

“One of the kids’ scents is missing. But these footprints are filled with the smell of smoke and something else, something musty? I can’t really tell. It’s like the smell of a tomb or something.”

“Internal conflict, maybe?”

Mick looked at where two footprints continued deeper into the forest while the third returned from where it came. He thought about what Blue had said and considered splitting up to go after the adult man but then decided not to. Their target was the kids.

“It would explain why the scent was weaker after the dungeon. They killed one of their own inside the dungeon with the help of an accomplice from town. They might have tried to get provisions from the dungeon if they hadn’t prepared properly?”

Blue voiced his ideas as they continued walking.

“It’s possible. But why was the man putting his hands on the ground? And why is there a burnt smell?”

“Barely escaped from the fire, maybe.”

Mick tilted his head in thoughtful agreement.

“Well, it’s not our job to figure out what happened. We only need to capture as many kids as we can and bring them back.”

Blue nodded at Mick’s words. Although there were some things that were suspicious and didn’t make sense, it wasn’t in their assignment details to find out everything. They also weren’t trained for that. Although they only had basic training, Mick and Blue were, in essence, Hunters. Sometimes, they hunted animals and monsters, and other times when the money was good, they hunted humans.

They were good at what they did, especially considering their rank. But they weren’t the kinds of people who could figure out what had happened from a single clue. They were better at using those clues to track down their prey and leave the figuring out to others.

And to help them, Mick had naturally keen eyes and a spell. Blue had a sensitive nose and a suitable spell to match.

“Hold it, Blue. I think they stopped ahead again.”

“Already? It seems they’re getting tired. Maybe I didn’t need to be suspicious about whether they really were kids or not.”

“No… There’s too much activity. If they took a break, they also did something else.”

“Like what?”

Blue was curious since he had to get closer to see the same things Mick did.

Mick pointed at a suspiciously even and flat array of leaves that covered a relatively round patch on the ground. There were also signs of someone trying to wipe away muddy footprints from the ground around the patch. But there weren’t any footprints on the leaves.

“Like that.”

“A trap?”

“Yep. Seems pretty basic, though.”

“Well, if we’re dealing with kids….”

“And you don’t sense the man’s smell?”

Blue closed his eyes for a few moments to check.

“Nope. Not here, at least. I can sense a few traces further away. Hey, what if it’s not an accomplice? What if it’s someone from the town pursuing the kids for revenge or something? And that’s why there were footprints on the ground and why he smells burnt? He’s injured. Back there, the kids discovered him and forced him to come out of the forest.”

Mick shrugged at Blue’s sudden epiphany.

“I don’t know. But he’s not getting in the way of our bounty.”

“Oh, for sure.”

Blue looked at the obvious trap again.

“So, do we just ignore this?”

“Well, yeah.”

Blue and Mick looked at the rug of branches and leaves.

Blue couldn’t control his curiosity.

“So, do you think it’s a pitfall or a net?”

Blue walked toward the tree closest to the rug of leaves, right at the edge of the animal trail. He looked on the ground between the tree and the leaves to try and see if there were any ropes that could connect a net laid out on the ground with a mechanism in the tree to capture the person who stepped on the leaves.

“It’s probably a pitfall. I don’t think they would carry around a net just for the sake of making a trap designed to capture.”

“Maybe they don’t like killing people. Like how they didn’t kill the man.”

“Like they killed the Baron’s son?”

“Right.”

Blue confirmed that there wasn’t anything on the ground. In fact, when he got close to it, he noticed that there was hollowed-out ground below the leaves.

“Yep, pitfall–”

“Watch out!”

Blue’s confirmation was interrupted by Mick shouting and throwing himself at Blue. Blue looked at Mick with confusion as he got tackled to the ground before he caught a glimpse of the swords hiding among the tree branches above them. And, now that he had accidentally stepped on a trap started raining down on them. Thanks to their rust, it was difficult to spot them among the leaves due to the dark rainclouds robbing the world of the majority of its light.

Mick and Blue scrambled to get away from the tree and the animal trail to avoid the rain of swords and the pitfall. They crawled on all fours toward the bushes.

In their adrenaline-fueled panic, they didn’t notice the arrowheads hiding inside the brushes until it was too late. Since they had crawled on all fours and pushed their way through even the densest of bushes, Mick and Blue’s arms, upper bodies, and legs were all decorated with gashes and cuts of various sizes due to brushing against the vegetation.

“Ah, fuck!”

“Damn! Don’t move, Blue!”

Blue had already realized their situation and stopped moving. But the pain and panic made it hard to stay absolutely still.

“Shit. What kind of fucking brats are we dealing with here? What kind of trap was that? I didn’t even notice it!”

“Be quiet. We need to get out of these bushes and wrap our wounds. If we bleed too much, we’re going to freeze to death.”

“I know, but I can’t even see what cut us! Is it the bushes?!”

Mick concentrated on the bushes around them.

“Arrows. Arrowheads. They fastened a shitload of arrowheads to the bushes. The wet and glistening leaves hid the arrowheads perfectly. What the fuck.”

Blue looked closely and noticed that there were indeed snapped arrows everywhere around them.

“Alright. Avoid the bushes. Got it. Any more traps?”

Mick sighed and stood up next to Blue.

“I don’t think so but don’t make any rash movements.”

He looked at the path they had plowed through the bushes and what was on the other end of it. He looked at where Blue had stepped to activate the trap.

“I think we should be fine. There should be a limit to what they could have done in that time when considering what kind of equipment they could have been carrying.”

Blue gently began finding his way through the bushes to a slightly more open space where he could inspect his wounds.

“So? What kind of fucking trap did I step on?”

Mick shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

He looked at the canopy, where a bunch of swords were still hiding.

“I think they used the dirt from digging the pit to hide some kind of device or string connected to the swords in the tree.”

“Shit luck then. Nothing would have happened if we took the other side of the pitfall?”

“There’s no way to be sure. Could be another trap.”

“Fuck this man.”

Mick looked at the blood dripping down his clothes. With the rain mixing and washing it away, it was difficult to tell how much they were bleeding.

“Yeah. If we continue like this, we might die. We maybe should have brought the first aid kit.”

“Who’s the one thinking about nonsense now?”

Mick helped Blue up before they retreated to a safe distance away from the traps. Mick was curious about the traps, but now wasn’t the time for that. They had to deal with their injuries.

After using their undershirts to patch themselves up as much as possible, Mick and Blue headed back the path they came.